


Orbital Burn

by IguanaMadonna



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe, Astronauts, F/M, space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-05
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-08-19 15:25:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8214145
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IguanaMadonna/pseuds/IguanaMadonna
Summary: The astronaut AU nobody asked for.For as long as Judy could remember she wanted to be an astronaut. When the Mammal Aeronautics and Space Administration (MASA) hires its largest astronaut class ever she gets her chance. But no astronaut lives in isolation of what happens on Earth and as anti-predator sentiment back home heats up Judy has to navigate the distance between Earth and Space and the fascinatingly mysterious Pilot Astronaut Nick Wilde.Was originally called "A Different Dream" but I thought that was too similar to the titles of other stories.





	1. Big Smoke

**Now**

Judy trembled, excitement and terror warring with the unexpected boredom of a three-hour checklist and countdown. This was third time she'd done this and each time she'd been achingly aware that this was the riskiest thing she'd ever done.

“Calm down Fluff,” Nick— _excuse me_ , Judy thought, _Commander Wilde—_ said. “You're not a rookie.”

Judy rolled her eyes, not that he could see it, and took a calming breath, forcing herself to look at the 'Zero-Gee Indicator' hanging off the ceiling. The stuffed toy rabbit stared back, the lights of the capsule's control board reflecting off its shiny black button eyes made it look almost alive.

“All systems Green,” Capcom said. “T-minus ten minutes.”

It was just her imagination, but Judy could feel the rocket rumble beneath her.

 

**Seventeen years ago**

Her uncle Terry was crouching over his HAM radio, fiddling with the knobs and muttering to himself. Judy rubbed her bandaged cheek idly, watching him tune the radio, listening to it hiss and crack. “This is Bravo Uniform November Sierra Alpha Victor come in, SSP, can you hear me?”

Judy held her breath, Uncle Terry had told her that it was unlikely the astronauts on board Space Station Peace would answer, even though it had a HAM radio too. Astronauts in space were busy, and when they weren't busy they were probably resting. They probably didn't have time for a little bunny's questions.

But one answered.

**Five years ago.**

There was a fox in the briefing room, lounging casually in back with his feet up on the back of the chair in front of him. Judy felt her stride check, her eyes freezing on him as some primitive part of her brain zeroed in on a natural enemy. The fox caught her hesitation and looked at her, grinning a wide, sharp-toothed grin, tongue curling in silent laughter. She froze up, embarrassment over her reaction and discomfort over the fox's presence warring against each other. Judy remembered that MASA was a desegregated workplace, of course there were predators here. He'd earned a place here as much as she had. The fox gave her a half-lidded look of contempt and Judy felt her spine straighten. She marched over to him, determined to start this off right. “Hi!” she said brightly, holding out her paw. “I'm Judy Hopps!”

For a moment she thought he wasn't going to take it, then he reached out and grasped her paw with his much larger one. She couldn't help noticing his much, much bigger claws. It was a little hard for her to judge his age but she thought he was older than she was, maybe in his thirties. No surprise, most astronauts became astronauts after a career doing something else. Judy was well aware that she was the weird one for entering the program right out of college. “Wilde, Nick Wilde,” he said, mimicking  _perfectly_ Jack Savage's famous movie quote. “Pilot Astronaut.”

Judy smiled for real and sat down next to him, feeling slightly relieved she left the Fox-Away at home. “I'm Mission Specialist,” she said, “Working on a PhD in Botany.”

“Ah, a bunny botanist,” Nick snickered. “Cute!”

“Err,” she said, cringing a little. “Maybe you didn't know this but while it's okay for a bunny to call another bunny cute, when other animals does it it's a little ehhhh”

“Oh, I knew that,” Nick said, leaning back once again and giving her a smirk. “Just teasing you, Carrots.”

Judy felt a flash of annoyance and instantly regretted trying to be nice, but the room was filling up and it was too late to find another seat. She'd just have to endure.

Most of the astronaut class were prey, but about a third were predators, and to Judy's surprise no one looked like they weighed over thirty pounds. There was even a sizable cohort of mice, rats, shrews, squirrels, and other tiny animals, nearly a hundred of them sitting at a set of tiny desks placed on top of four medium sized desks. She'd heard of mousetronauts before, but this was the first time she'd seen any.

“Looks like MASA is a bit sizist,” Nick said, following her gaze. “Good thing for us.”

“Sizism usually favors large animals,” Judy said. “Maybe they're worried about mass?”

“Hmm,” Nick said, giving the room a half-lidded look, “didn't stop them in previous classes.”

And that was true enough. The astronaut who'd spoken to her through her uncle's ham radio was a gazelle.

“I guess we'll find out.”

A clicking of hooves announced the arrival of the MASA chief. As if echoing Nick's earlier comment he was a Cape buffalo, huge and imposing. Judy knew from her natural history classes that Cape buffalo had few predators, even back when predators actually killed prey. Maybe lions, working in a group, but not much else. He grinned at them, or rather showed his teeth. They were flat, like most prey, but somehow more menacing than any pred's. Judy swallowed nervously, her ears at attention.

“I am Chief Bogo. Welcome, Recruits, to Zootopia's 23rd astronaut class!” There was a round of enthusiastic clapping. Everyone in this room had worked really hard and beaten out thousands of other applicants to get here. Even Nick clapped, although he did it with a sardonic expression on his face. Judy was considerably more excited, practically jumping up and down in her seat. The buffalo waited a few beats then gestured for silence. “Alright! Settle down!” Gradually the applause died down. Bogo waited until there was complete silence and every eye focused on him. “I should have a nice little speech welcoming all my new brothers and sisters into MASA's little family of spacefarers, but I don't. More than half of you will wash out of the program in six months or less. We will be lucky if a third of you are here in two years. Most of whoever remains might not get a space mission for years. You will spend more time in caves, or under the ocean than you ever will in space. When you aren't diving and doing seemingly pointless teambuilding exercises you will be studying and taking tests or doing outreach at schools. If you are lucky you will be running controls for tests being done up in the SSP as well as experiments down here on Earth. When you aren't doing that, you will be doing paperwork. Lots of paperwork.” Bogo's grin was downright nasty. “If you wanted to do actual space exploration, you should have joined JPL. They have robots exploring alien worlds.”

Judy knew all this, everyone in the room did, or should anyway. That didn't stop the slightly alarmed pang that hit her in the chest. Years! (of course it would be years, they'd have to train her, and that took time) It was somewhat shocking to hear it all laid out so bluntly, but that was probably a good thing. She took a determined breath. Judy was a farmer's daughter, she knew better than anyone that the best things in life were worth the wait and work. She could do this.

“If you do manage to get a mission your chances of dying go up exponentially,” Bogo said. “We have never lost a crew in space, although we've come close. Launch and reentry, however...” his voice trails off meaningfully and Judy shuddered. She'd watched every disaster on Ewetube of course, her mother forcing her to watch them over and over again in the vain hope that Judy would withdraw her application.

“If you wanted a safe career,” Nick murmured, “go back to carrot farming.”

Judy rolled her eyes. “Farming is one of the more dangerous careers, actually.”

“As dangerous as strapping yourself to the top of a giant bomb and launching yourself into space?”

“Got something to add Wilde?” Chief Bogo called out from the stage. Judy blushed as the entire class turned to stare at them, but Nick just gave him a cool look.

“Oh, just all the pilot astronauts who died when their experimental planes crashed, no biggie.” Nick made a show of examining his claws nonchalantly but Judy was close enough to feel an odd bit of tension wafting off him.

“Doesn't count.” Bogo said. “Didn't happen on a space mission.” Judy was watching Nick closely enough to see something that was almost a snarl shift into another sardonic grin. “But yes, that is another risk for some of you.” Nick snorted softly.

_'Doesn't count,'_ she thought.  _Why not? Isn't flying also part of the job?_

“Anything else?”

Judy's hand shot up but she didn't wait to be called on. “Why aren't there any larger mammals?” It had been niggling at her since Nick's remark.

“Good question...?”

“Hopps, sir.”

“Hopps,” he repeated, “If we're going to hit our 2022 asteroid mission and our 2030 goal of a crewed mission to Mars at our current funding level we needed to downsize. Literally. You Pip Squeaks get to be heroes.”

You could have heard a pin drop. Between the unexpected slur and the buried lede dropped so casually into the middle of his speech Judy didn't know what to think. They were going to _Mars?_ Her heart pounded and blood rushed in her ears. People had been talking about it for years of course, but she hadn't known that it was _official._

“Well now,” Nick said as the room broke into applause. “Heroes?” He didn't sound impressed.

“It certainly sounds exciting!” Judy said, almost vibrating in her seat.

“There's such a thing as too exciting, Fluff.”

Judy rolled her eyes. “If you didn't want exciting you shouldn't have become an astronaut.”

Nick shrugged and stood to leave. “Just following someone else's dream.”

That got Judy's attention. She looked up at him and caught the glimmer of emotion in his green eyes but before she could decipher it he flicked on a pair of sunglasses and turned and walked away.

 


	2. Behavior Modification

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The astronaut AU no one asked for. Nick and Judy join MASA's latest astronaut class, but problems on Earth affect even those reaching for the stars.

**Now**

“T-minus 10,” and Nick feels his heart kick up. Launch was the third scariest thing he'd ever done in his life, right after triggering the ejector seat and asking his mate out for the first time, and repeat practice never makes it easier. Launch is always going to be his crewmates (and him) seated in a capsule atop a series of giant controlled explosions. It was terrifying.

And exhilarating.

“9,8, 7, 6,”

Nick glances over at Judy and sees that she's calmed down. He didn't know if it was a rabbit thing or a Judy thing, but she's tuned tight and tends to freak out when there's a lot of waiting to do. Now that the action is starting she's calming down. He knows her heart rate is probably dropping by the second the closer they got to death (launch). Sometimes Nick wonders if she is a functional psychopath—she certainly has some of the markers. A lot of the early astronauts were, he knew, as well as a lot of fighter pilots. It wasn't that big a deal. It just made working with her a lot more exciting.

“5, 4,”

He casts one last glance at the dozen 'moustronauts' strapped into their tiny cradles around by the wall of the capsule. They look fine, or as fine as anyone hoping they don't blow up on the launchpad looks.

“3, 2,”

He inhales sharply.

“1.”

It's like being punched in the chest by a rhino, something Nick had only experienced once and vowed never to repeat. The force of the launch pushes him from behind, a forceful acceleration that pushes him up, up, up to the stars.

“We have liftoff!” Capcom announces.

 

* * *

 

**Seventeen years ago.**

He is in pawcuffs, and he is staring back at the judge and the DA and the prosecutor and his own lawyer with a smirk on his face just as if he hadn't just had full blown panic attack over the muzzle the bailiff had put on him. They were staring at him in consternation, probably remembering how he turned blue and pretty much stopped breathing the moment it touched his face and he hates all of them with every fiber of his being. Nick Wilde does not want to be seen as weak, and they had just seen him in his weakest. Looking at the DA he realizes she probably feels sorry for him and that makes him hate her more. DAs aren't supposed to feel sorry for their victims, but this deer does.

He knows what they see, a young fox doing what foxes do because that's how he's supposed to be. He's no better than he should be, and he knows it, so its all the more puzzling that they're offering him this deal.

“What we are offering,” says the DA, “is a second chance.” She glances at his lawyer, a public defense attorney who is a raccoon that looks old and tired before his time. The raccoon picks up the baton of conversation and takes off.

“Join the military and keep your nose clean for four years,” he grunts, “and they'll drop the charges.” He shrugs. “Or go to prison for two.” He makes it sound like he doesn't care, but Nick is not stupid. This would be a plus on the raccoon's record. On all of their records. Turning a young fox from a life of crime into a productive citizen? A bonus. They were being charitable, and he hated charity.

For a long moment he's tempted to tell them to fuck off. Prison for two years is less time, and possibly the lesser sentence, but the ghost of his mother said that wasn't wise, and the ghost of his father said it was a bad deal. Prison would be a stain on his record, military service a gold star. Prison would limit him, military, well, he could go anywhere with military.

And besides, the big crime families liked nothing more than professionally trained soldiers.

_It's a hustle, sweetheart._

Nick grins, feeling every inch the fox he is. “Can I choose the branch?”

 

* * *

 

 

**Five years ago**

The the missing mammal sign on the florist's door was old and worn. Nick shook his head sadly as he opened the door. Technically Mr. Otterton wasn't missing per se, but his mind sure was. The door rang as he entered, and the pika at the counter looked up. She eyed him nervously, which made him think she was new. Most of Mrs. Otterton's clients these days were predators, for some reason prey tended to shy away from the little flower shop. He grinned at her and tipped his non-existent hat.

“Hey, you're new!” He held out his paw, she took it gingerly, like he might pounce and claw her at any moment. He grinned at her, but for the sake of Mrs. Otterton kept his teeth fully concealed. Wouldn't do to chase off her predphobic employees before the other customers had a chance. “Nick Wilde, here for Mrs. Otterton. She in back?” The pika nodded and then gasped in alarm as he came around the counter and went into the back.

“Wait! Stop!--”

“Oh Nick!” Mrs. Otterton dropped the bouquet she was working on and darted over, giving him a hug. “Is it time already?”

Nick checked his smartwatch. “Yep I'd say so.”

“Well,” Mrs. Otterton said, turning back to the bouquet, “Let me finish up here and then we can go.”

The pika cleared her throat from the doorway.

“Adriana!” Mrs. Otterson said. Nick noticed that her tone got slightly sharper. Not by much, but any sharpness at all was unusual for the small otter. “I'm taking off for the day, Rich will be over in an hour, but you'll be on your own until then. Give me a call if there are any emergencies.” Adriana rolled her eyes and Nick thought there was a story there. Mrs. Otterton finished the bouquet and handed to to the pika. “Put this in the cooler with the others.”

“Sooo,” Nick said once they were in his car, a red classic Mustang. “How are you doing?”

She sighed, “Oh, I'm doing alright I suppose. They're trying something else with him.”

“A new medication?”

The otter shook her head, staring straight ahead. “Behavior modification,” she said after awhile. “It's supposed to... teach... him not to be aggressive.”

Nick hit the breaks as a rhino-mobile decided to barge into the small-mammal lane. He growled under his breath and vaguely wished he was a cop so he could slap that guy with a nice big fine. Asshole megafauna like that killed way more mammals every week through shear negligence and belligerence than all the predators who have gone savage in the last three years put together. It baffled him that so many mammals couldn't see that.

“Ohhh that's why I hate driving,” Mrs. Otterton said, wringing her paws. “Mammals just don't pay attention!”

Nick forced himself to relax his grip on the steering wheel. Dogfights did not scare him. Ditching a dying X-plane was part of the job. He once had an engine give out mid-flight and had to make an emergency landing on a freeway and that didn't phase him, but driving? Yeah, driving could and did send him into a cold sweat, mostly because of the other idiots in close proximity on the road. Nick's relaxed grin and half-lidded look were pure reflex, never let them see them get to you.

After that Cliffside couldn't come soon enough.

It was an eerie place, a looming hulk of building perched improbably in the middle of a waterfall. He remembered when news of it broke, that disgraced former mayor Lionheart had been kidnapping predators who had 'gone savage' and housing them here. Nick remembered the press conference that followed, how the first-ever chinchilla cop had smiled and fluffed his fur and told the world that it was 'just in pred's biology'.

He also remembered that same chinchilla being torn apart three months later by a coyote. She was here too along with all the other savage predators, but he'd never seen her.

If Nick hadn't been in the military at the time he might have lost his job like a lot of predators did during the resulting panic. A panic that hadn't really ever calmed down. Every time it looked like things were getting better another predator would go nuts in a crowded shopping center, or a park or a school.  
The timing was eerie, and Nick wasn't the only predator to consider it suspicious but there wasn't anything he could do about it.

And during the whole of it all the predators who had gone 'savage' were shipped back to Cliffside, which made him wonder what the point to arresting and imprisoning Lionheart was. He was better than Bellwether, anyway. Nick sometimes thought that if Lionheart had been prey he would have been called a hero instead of a criminal.

“Want me to go in with you?” he asked. Mrs. Otterton nodded firmly.

“Yes,” she said. “I don't want to be alone.”

They stopped long enough at Reception to get a couple visitor's passes. The deer crewing the desk recognized him from the last visit and didn't kick up too much of a fuss even though he technically wasn't on the 'approved' visitor's list.

Emmett Otterton had changed, although Nick wasn't sure it was an improvement. The last time he'd seen the otter he'd been a snarling, rabid mess. He lunged at everyone, including his wife and kids, totally intent on ripping them all to shreds. He would have done it too, if is wasn't for the thick bullet-proof glass separating Mr. Otterton from any visitors. Now, however, he cowered at the back of his cell, the thing on the collar around his neck beeping yellow. Mrs. Otterton was beside herself.

“Oh, oh,” she said smiling through her tears, “he's not attacking the glass!”

Nick didn't think the collar was an improvement, at all. But then what did he know? He wasn't married to a feral beast. “Yeah, that's... that's great,” he said. If she noticed his less-than-enthusiastic response she didn't show it. His phone dinged quietly. “I got to take this,” he said, “Mind if I duck out?”

“Oh no, go ahead,” Mrs. Otterton said, walking up to the glass. “Hi, Sweetie,” she said to the savage otter, placing her paw on the glass. Emmett flinched back. Nick slipped out of the room before he could see more.

It was absolutely heartbreaking watching his mother's best friend go through all this. There was no one sweeter than Mrs. Otterton, she and her husband didn't deserve this at all. Nick collapsed on a bench in the hallway with a sigh and pulled out his phone. It really wasn't anything important, just a Muzzlebook notification that someone had friended him. He thumbed the app open anyway, it was that bunny from earlier today, the botanist. Judy Hopps. A quick peek at her timeline showed that she was friending everyone in their class, and a few in the previous as well. Nick shook his head in mock sadness, and here he thought he was special!

He thought for a second. He could wallow in whatever was going on in the room behind him, or he could do what he'd always done which was resolutely ignore the shittiness of the world around him in favor to what he wanted to have. Foxes usually weren't allowed to have nice things, but Nick had discovered that if he pretended to be oblivious enough to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune he could get some of what he wanted.

Some, but not all.

_Hell, I shouldn't complain,_ he thought. _I'm going to be an astronaut._

He glanced up briefly as a squadron of medical assistants, all large prey, marched by, surrounding a stretcher containing a sedated fossa. They side-eyed him as they went, as if wondering why he was there, visitor's badge notwithstanding. He swallowed. The fossa, a giant Madagascan mongoose that looked a lot like a small cougar, stank of pronghorn blood. Nick's ears went down, the scent stirring bad memories.

Another notice, this time a reminder to review his upcoming mission on SOFIA. He already knew the plane and the flight plan by heart, but he hadn't gotten this far by taking his knowledge for granted. He looked at the notification and realized that this was probably his last time flying the stratospheric observatory. It was a strange feeling, SOFIA was how he'd gotten into MASA in the first place. His phone dinged again and he saw a DM from the Botanist Bunny.

_Hey Nick how's it going_

_what's up Fluff?_

_our first class together is next week. I'm setting up a study group. Want to join? BTW don't call me Fluff_

_Sure thing Carrots. Sounds good_. Nick snickered at the look of frustration he was sure the rabbit was giving her phone right now.

_Whatever Sly_

Nick snickered again, momentarily forgetting the eerie oppressive atmosphere of the asylum. Then something occurred to him.

_Hey Fluff, I'm flying a SOFIA mission day after tomorrow. There's an extra seat in the cockpit. Want to come?_

_SOFIA?_

_Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy. Basically a 747 with a reflective telescope. You really ought to get familiar with all the MASA programs_

_and you can just invite someone? Aren't you just the chauffeur?_

Now it was Nick's turn to glower at the screen for a moment, offended. He had to laugh at himself. Sly bunny.

_Hey now, I'm the captain. My plane my rules. Besides, Dr. Nichclaws is pretty laid back_

_uh, could you ask him anyway? And yeah, I'd love 2_

_her. Great! Meet me on the tarmac at 1900_

An eerie growl came from the room behind him and Nick jumped. Got to go and stood up, poking his head back into Mr. Otterton's room. Mr. Otterton was pawing at the glass separating him from his wife. She was sitting on the floor, paw and face pressed against it. The savage otter would flash a fang at her and then quickly flinch before circling, growling, and pushing up against the glass again. Nick couldn't tell if he was trying to be friendly or aggressive. Or maybe both? He had more mood swings than a hyena in heat.

Mrs. Otterton looked like she thought she should be happy but really wanted to cry. Nick cleared his throat and both otters turned to look at him. Mr. Otterton snarled and lunged before being brought up short by an audible ZAP from his collar. Nick and Mrs. Otterton winced. Mr. Otterton dashed off to the back of the room to cower under the bed.

“Sorry,” Nick said apologetically.

Mrs. Otterton sighed. “It's alright Nick. I think it's time for us to go anyway.” He helped her up from the floor and gave her a hug, feeling her small frame shudder with suppressed tears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I had a massive anxiety attack that lasted a week and then jumped right into a midterm. So, yeah. SOFIA is real. I'm not really creative enough to come up with completely new NASA programs lol. A lot of astronauts get started in NASA by volunteering for mock missions and so it's not much of a leap to think that a pilot hired to fly planes for them might make a sideways jump to astronaut.
> 
> Dr. "Nichclaws" is a bit of an easteregg. Let's see who gets it.
> 
> Nanowrimo is coming up. I'm not saying I'll use this story for it, but I might.


	3. I Wonder If She

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ejection tower and booster separation, flight of SOFIA, plot B arrives, sisters are annoying

**Now**

 

“All systems are nominal,” Capcom was saying. Judy smiles, Wolford sounds almost bored. Nominal was boring, and boring was good during a launch. You didn't want excitement. She pulls her attention back to the sheaf of papers in her lap. The the ring holding them all together was attached with a short strap to her suit. She needed to continue following the checklist.

 

It was a good thing she was focused.

 

“Escape tower ejected,” Capcom said, and Judy breathed. This was it, with the escape tower gone there was nowhere to go but space. A moment later there was a faint rattle. “Boosters ejected.” She swallowed, mentally picturing the four booster engines tumbling away from the spacecraft back toward Earth. The rocket was now being propelled by a single engine.

 

“Two minutes until Stage 2 separation. All systems nominal,” Capcom said.

 

* * *

 

 

**Five years ago**

 

The rock (although “rock” wasn't really the right term, “small mountain” might be more accurate) spun slowly around its axis as it made its slow waltz through the inner solar system. It had circled the sun on an elliptical orbit for millions and billions of years, each orbit taking it incrementally closer to Earth. Eventually it would hit. It didn't care, of course, it was just a rock.

 

It wouldn't destroy the world. It wouldn't destroy all life, or even most life.

 

It would only destroy civilization as they know it.

 

“Why haven't I heard about this?” Judy asked, peering at the HIPO instrument. They were flying on SOFIA, which as it turned out was a Batwing 747 with a giant radio-scope build into its butt and a number of mysterious screens and wires lining the inside. It was also cold. Really cold. She shivered inside her winter coat and wished she'd brought her ear-mits.

 

“ 'Wolf! Wolf!' “ Nick yelled, “ 'The sky is falling!' “ He quirked his eyebrows at her. She rolled her eyes, hiding a smile.

 

“Shouldn't you be flying the plane?” she asked.

 

He gave her a smug look. “It's called a copilot, Sweetheart.”

 

Judy heaved an exaggerated sigh. She'd seen his copilot and it was a miracle the tiny fox could even reach the controls.

 

“That's part of it,” Dr. Nichelle Niclaws said, ignoring the byplay. She was an elderly melanistic serval with a gentle and wise demeanor. Judy felt instantly at ease in her presence despite her being a predator. “Every few months _a certain institution_ announces that an asteroid is going to hit. Then we'd get more data in and prove it was going to be another close miss. Eventually the mainstream media stopped listening.”

 

“What's the other reason?” Judy asked.

 

“Oh, it'll happen in about an hundred years,” the elderly cat said.

 

“If it doesn't mean immediate death in the near future no one cares,” Nick continued, helpfully. “Too bad so sad to our great-great-grand kits, I guess.”

 

“But you're sure about this one.”

 

The serval nodded. “Every time we run the calculations, it hits.”

 

Judy shivered, staring at the wiggly lines on a graph. She'd used spectrometers of course, but they'd been aimed at samples in a test tube, not a distant asteroid. This was only her second week as an astronaut and already she felt like she jumped into the deep end before she knew how to swim. She felt out of her depth, but even so the pieces were falling into place.

 

“You're trying to figure out what it's made of,” she said, “So we can, what, send spacecraft out there to do something to the asteroid to alter its course?”  
  


“Yes.” Nichelle gave her a close-mouthed smile, hiding her sharp teeth. “Wouldn't do any good to send you guys out there with the wrong equipment.”

 

“And small species were chosen because we'd be better for deep space missions.”

 

Nick didn't bother hiding his teeth when he grinned. “Good job,” he said, with a not at all sarcastic golf-clap. “You got it Fluff!”

 

“You're a little old to still be in the tail-tugging phase, Slick,” Judy fired back. Judy wasn't really certain what was going on in his canine brain, first he'd invited her to this flight, then teased her mercilessly when she showed up. Whatever it was she'd figured out pretty quickly that the best way to deal with the fox was to meet him head on, not avoid conflict. He reminded her a little of one of her littermates, who hid his insecurity behind a facade. She frowned mentally. Things hadn't ended up so well for Jasper.

 

Nick smirked at her. Judy shook her head at him silently, and turned her attention back to Dr. Nichelle. Judy couldn't help noticing the way the pale cream fur on his chest fluffed out just a tad right above the collar of his navy blue flight suit, or the air of confidence under his slick exterior. He leaned in close to peer over her shoulder at the screen, and Judy could feel the heat of him radiating through the cold of the plane. For a moment she wondered if he was going to tug her tail, and if he did, what she would do about it. But no, apparently Slick Nick was too much of a gentle-fox to hit on a coworker. Judy couldn't figure out if she was disappointed or not.

 

* * *

 

 

 

She was still mulling the flight over the next day when she met one of other littermates up for dinner. Jenny was trying to set her up with a buck again, and Judy wasn't haven't any of it. They'd ended up arguing over pineapple rice and papaya salad at a Thai restaurant.

 

“What the heck it wrong with you?” Jenny asked, stabbing the salad viciously with a fork. “Philip is a perfectly nice buck. If I weren't already married I'd date him myself!”

 

Judy shrugged. “He started talking about kits on the first date. That was a bit much, you know?”

 

Jenny rolled her eyes. “It's never too early to talk about kits. You don't have to a couple dozen litters like Mom, but don't you want at least one?”

 

“Yeah, eventually,” Judy said, “but not right now.”

 

“You better do it soon,” Jenny said, “I was reading about all that radiation up there, your eggs are going to _fry.”_

 

Judy felt her irritation growing. “We aren't just our reproductive organs, you know,” she said. “Why does it always come around to that?”

 

“Because that's what we are,” Jenny said. “We're rabbits. We marry young and have a lot of kits. Except you, because you're the weirdo.”

 

Judy narrowed her eyes at her sister. Out of the corner of her eye she saw two foxes, one red, and one cream colored. They reminded her a bit of Nick and his copilot from the day before. “That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard,” she said. Jenny looked a little taken aback. She must have realized that she'd gone too far and pulled back.

 

“Well, anyway, if you don't like Philip are there any bucks you do like?”

 

Judy had to think. “Can't say any come to mind,” she said.

 

“What about does?”

 

Judy blinked, “To be honest,” she said slowly, “I never really thought about dating another doe.”

 

“Well?”

 

Judy shrugged again, “Can't say it interests me,” she said.

 

“See?” Jenny said triumphantly. “You're a weirdo!”

 

Judy glared at her sister. “Quit trying to set me up,” she said, a little more sharply than she intended. Jenny raised an eyebrow at her.

 

“Is there someone else?” Jenny asked. “A different species, perhaps? A hare? Or a, a jackrabbit? You know, this is the 21st century, we'd be okay if you brought home a pika or mara or something like that.”

 

“Maras are rodents, not lagomorphs.”

 

Jenny wrinkled her nose. “Really? Darn, I was so going to hook you up too.”

 

“So you're okay with me dating a hare or a pika but not a rodent?” Judy stabbed a slice of green papaya with a little more force than she needed to and resisted the urge to drum her foot.

 

If Jenny noticed her sister's rising ire she pretended not to see it. “Well, of course. There's inter-species dating, and then there's inter-order dating. One can work out, the other always ends in tragedy Remember Jasper?”

 

Stab stab stab “Leave him out of it. It wasn't his fault.”

 

Jenny's eyes narrowed. “The jury said otherwise.”

 

Okay, that was enough. Judy stood and slapped a twenty down on the table. “Okay, family time is over. I'll see you at Litter D's birthday party.”

 

“Not coming to P or I's?”

 

Judy ground her teeth to keep from yelling. “No, we're going to be digging at Gale Crater.”

 

“Digging,” Jenny said derisively. “When are you going to space?”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SOFIA and HIPO are real things because I'm not creative enough to make up scientific instruments. SOFIA is a Boeing 747 that has been turned into an observatory. HIPO is an instrument on it that has been used to study asteroid belt (which is between Mars and Jupiter) and kuipter belt (the most famous of which is Pluto) objects. I probably got what it does wrong though.
> 
> There are a number of Earth orbit-crossing asteroids, and generally we have one or two crossing our orbit every few months. There used to be huge media storms about them, but now they only get attention when they align with a holiday or major event such as our recent election. You may even hear about one that's going to hit, only to have the story retracted a few weeks or months later when more data comes through and shows a miss. The fact is, however, eventually one won't miss, and then we'll have to figure out what to do.
> 
> Chapter title comes from Astronaut Chris Hadfield's album, Space Sessions: Songs From a Tin Can, which was recorded on board the International Space Station during his last visit. If you haven't seen his cover of Space Oddity on Youtube I highly recommend it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! It's been awhile since I've written anything. I hope you like it! I'm a bit of a space fan. Ratings may change as the story does. The chapter title comes from astronaut Chris Hadfield's album "Space Sessions" which was recorded on board the ISS.
> 
> Uncle Terry's ham radio callsign is BUNSAV, for Bunny Savage--he never did get over his brush with Night Howler poisoning.
> 
> MASA=NASA. JPL=Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
> 
> SSP= Space Station Peace, basically instead of ditching Mir Zootopia kept adding to it. It's now basically an older, larger, and more worn version of the International Space Station.
> 
> The "Zero-Gee Indicator" is an astronaut/cosmonaut tradition dating back to Yuri Gagarin's first orbit around the world. It's usually given to the child of one of the astronauts on the mission. The excuse given is that it visually shows (by floating around) when they make it is microgravity, but mostly its because who doesn't like stuffed toys?
> 
> There's two types of astronauts, Pilot and Mission Specialist. Pilot astronauts fly the spacecraft as well as a number of experimental and specialist aircraft. Mission Specialist is the 'other' category, they're usually scientists, engineers, or doctors. While there is a lot of cross-training between the roles they each have their own place in Space.
> 
> I hope to update this about once a week.


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